Kennedy's Last Days: The Assassination That Defined a Generation
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Authors: Bill O'Reilly
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This book is dedicated to my ancestors,
THE KENNEDYS
OF YONKERS, NEW YORK:
hardworking, generous, and honest folk.
CONTENTS
PART 3 DALLAS, TEXAS—NOVEMBER 1963
The Kennedys: A Photo Family Tree
The Crew of USS
PT-109
on Its Last Mission
John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address
John and Jackie Kennedy: Some Famous and Interesting Words
The Zapruder Film: A Moment-by-Moment Record
Investigating the Assassination: The Warren Commission
Some Facts About the Early 1960s
John’s sisters Patricia, Jeanne, and Eunice show their support during Kennedy’s senatorial campaign. The donkey is a symbol of the Democratic Party.
[© Bettmann/Corbis]
“The stories of past courage can define that ingredient—they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.”
—John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“It can be said of him, as of few men in a like position, that he did not fear the weather, and did not trim his sails, but instead challenged the wind itself, to improve its direction and to cause it to blow more softly and more kindly over the world and its people.”
—E. B. White
PROLOGUE
T
HE BAD NEWS ARRIVED
in religion class. We were in Brother Carmine Diodati’s room that day when the radio report came over the loudspeaker:
President John F. Kennedy has been shot in Dallas, Texas, and taken to the hospital.
A short time later, we would learn that he was dead.
We were startled. No one knew what to say. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news, and so do most Americans who were born before 1953. I’ll bet there is someone in your family who can tell you what it felt like to hear the awful news that the president had been assassinated.
Chaminade High School, where I was a freshman, was (and still is) all boys, or “young men,” as we were called, so there weren’t a lot of tears then. The days that followed were filled with sadness and confusion. We had to go to several sorrowful masses and listen to lectures about the slain president and the tragedy that had befallen America.
The author’s ID for Chaminade High School, 1965–66.
Mostly, we were confused. My life at the time revolved around sports and friends. I didn’t think too much about national politics. I took pride in wearing the red and gold school colors on the field, did my homework, and tried to stay in line with the school rules. I don’t remember talking to my friends about the assassination.
Life was pretty simple in those days. For adults the rules seemed to be these: You worked, obeyed the law, cared for your family, looked out for your neighbors, and respected your country. The Kennedy assassination shattered that calm sense of order. People throughout America were asking themselves and one another why it happened and who really killed the president.
In 1960, when Kennedy was elected, I was in sixth grade at St. Brigid’s Catholic School. Of course his picture was soon on the walls because he was the country’s first Catholic president. And he was Irish, too. I had Kennedys in my background. My mother’s grandmother was Winifred Kennedy, and all American Kennedys liked to think they were related to this groundbreaking president. And because we were Irish Catholic, too, our family felt deep emotional ties to the president and his family.
Soon after Kennedy was elected, there was a scary change at school. Three months after the inauguration, there was a standoff with Russia and Cuba, and people were afraid there would be a nuclear war. To prepare for this, we had fallout-shelter drills at school. When the bell rang, all the kids had to file out to the school parking lot. If a war had started, buses would take us to an underground bunker.
